As digital screens and billboards have become more accessible on price to a wider range of businesses and applications, there are some industries where they’ve become the gold standard. Digital screens are rapidly replacing print signs and billboards now that they’re more affordable. They offer several key benefits over older communications methods, such as:
- Up-to-date and relevant messaging
- Attention-grabbing visuals and flexible content
- Interactivity and touchscreens
Digital displays offer more versatility and capabilities than print signs could. We’re seeing their proliferation across malls, public buildings, parking lots, stadiums, outdoor festivals, and city streets. If you’re in any of these industries, it’s time to look into digital billboards and screens.
#1 Retail
Storefront digital displays can make a huge difference when you’re trying to bring consumers in off the street or from the mall. One of the best ways to attract attention and draw in foot traffic is through the use of movement. The human eye is more likely to stop and pay attention to a dynamic display.
Inside the store, digital signage can help create a unique retail experience, a development that’s essential for businesses that need to differentiate brick-and-mortar shopping from the convenience of online shopping.
#2 Marketing
Portable digital displays have become an essential tool for companies doing trade shows and live brand activations. When you’re in public trying to raise brand awareness or differentiate yourself from the crowd, digital displays expand your toolkit with touchscreen and gesture interactivity, gamification experiences, and even Augmented Reality.
The availability of easy-to-install rental digital displays makes their marketing applications even more widespread. Marketers working in outdoor environments should also be on the lookout for digital displays certified for high wind speeds.
#3 Healthcare
The healthcare industry has unique needs when it comes to public messaging, wayfinding, and checking in. Hospitals serve a wide range of public needs. Digital signage can be used from the parking lot to patient pick-up.
The need to provide up-to-date public health messaging has never been clearer than during the COVID-19 pandemic, and hospitals above all must be able to provide accurate and clearly-visible instructions for patients, visitors, and staff.
#4 Venues & Festivals
Venue owners and festival organizers need signage that can adapt to a constantly-changing schedule of events and a way to control crowds during events that attract thousands of people. Digital signage can also provide opportunities for advertising, sponsorship fulfillment, VIP promotions, and brand activations.
#5 Smart Cities
Smart cities are at the cutting edge of urban design. They’re a way of building neighborhoods using sensors and technology to derive data from residents and visitors and use that data to improve quality of life, automate municipal services (like garbage collection and delivery), and reinvent the city as we know it.
Digital displays have the potential to both enrich public spaces as a way of displaying video art installations and as a way of collecting data through sensor technology.
Digital displays have many more applications across industries, but these are areas where digital signs have crossed from nice-to-have to need-to-have.
